Present day telephony voice networks, have a network built around circuit switches, end offices, a toll network, tandem switches, and twisted wires. These voice networks are referred to as a public switched telephone network (PSTN) or plain old telephone service (POTS). Due to bandwidth limitations of plain old telephone service (POTS), there is an inherent inability to efficiently integrate multiple types of media such as telephony, data communication for personal computers (PC), and television (TV) broadcasts. Accordingly, a new broadband architecture is required. This new architecture gives rise to a new array of user services.
Conventional call forwarding only allows a call to be forwarded to a single predetermined number. This is inflexible and outdated considering the increasing mobility of subscribers today. There is a need for a more flexible and useful call forwarding system that allows call forwarding to a variety of numbers depending upon different dynamic factors such as time, date, etc. There is also a need for call forwarding features in the new IP telephone architecture.